Ye Dunia Jee Laganay Ki Nahin Hai!

I reached office yesterday and was settling down switching my computer on and going about my daily ritual when a new colleague of mine walked in and went past my desk to the HR reps sitting behind me. Having HR placed behind me has been a source of some good entertainment ever since we moved into the new office so I thought this would be interesting. In the new “open space” it’s a bit difficult to ignore conversations that spring up close by so eavesdropping is the new national pastime J

Anyways, the gentleman is a new transfer into Dubai, as is the case with the company these days since many departments are relocating to Dubai. So this gentleman has just joined the long line of “expats” living in Dubai and he sounds a bit ticked off. “I went to the bank to open an account yesterday, did you know that in Dubai if you die, then your account gets frozen and your family doesn’t get any access to the money? Did you know that you need to have a will made and registered with the bank so that it enables access of funds to your family if you happen to die, and that this will needs to be drawn up in Arabic and registered with the courts? Even then it might take weeks before your family gets any access to your funds? Why didn’t HR tell me this before? Why don’t you advise all expats coming into Dubai as a matter of policy?” and so the conversation continued, largely one way traffic with the HR reps squirming for replies, but weren’t able to muster up anything substantial.

The conversation ended and the gentleman left steaming, basically wanting the company to foot the bill for drawing up the will since it was an expense he had to undertake being an expat, but it left me wondering. I thought to myself, just because this guy’s a gora he could mouth off and will probably end up getting his way, but this applies to any expat who lives in Dubai. That’s probably why majority of the expats don’t keep their money here and save up in their home countries or in forms of gold, except for the people who have lost sight of reality and have come to accept this place as their “home”.

It’s these people I’d like to address.  There are countless stories of people having spent their entire adult lives here 20 years, 30 years, sometimes even in government, and at the end of it had to leave the country as soon as they retired since now they didn’t have a visa. Not everyone was lucky enough to have children who had been brought up here on the farce they call education and landed good enough jobs to be able to sponsor their parents and that too for only a year. There’s something inhumane about asking someone in their 60s to just pack up and leave and go back to their home countries to try and settle into a new system all over again where more often then not they have lost any semblance of a social network and the family is a bit alienated since you’ve spent all your time abroad. The look in those same relatives’ eyes is killing when you realize that it has dawned upon them that you will now be here forever and will no longer be the distant cousins who would be coming home bearing fancy gifts every other summer.

The children can’t be blamed either because they’ve grown up on an overdose of “the good life”, ineffective education or a job market that isn’t ready to hire expat fresh grads. Why? Simply because they don’t have to. The government only asks them to hire local fresh grads because that’s the indigenous population they’re responsible for. We’re just the necessary evil they have to live with so that we can keep the country running or building their egos even higher. It’s the nature of the beast that companies have established here knowing full well that the local talent is not good enough to cut it, therefore the need to bring in seasoned professionals from outside or bring in foreigners on temporary assignments. This simple fact adds to the temporary nature of the place.

Add to it the glitz of the shiny buildings, the high profile events and the over the top landmarks and you get the feel of a huge life sized amusement park, which again by definition closes down at nightfall.

It’s all a big fish net. You get drawn here by the prospect of earning in dirhams and you say this is big money. You convert into your local currency and you think, no one in my class would be earning this much, so you jump at it. You tend to conveniently forget the costs will be in dirhams as well. Again countless stories of labour class workers being duped by high promises into taking loans to come here and then being stuck with less than half the pay they were promised and a mountain of debt. Can’t go back coz they have to pay the debt off, and wait a minute, their passports have been locked away so they can’t go even if they wanted to just leave.

The people who fare slightly better said to themselves, I’m going for 3 years, 4 years, 5 years max, that’s how long it’ll take me to save up to do this this and this back home, then I’m jumping on a plane and back it is. During those years, they end up marrying, having kids, taking on debt and it becomes harder and harder to just get up and leave. Its like quicksand.

Scores and scores of people headed back to their home countries during the mid 90s and now post the Sep 2008 recession, and came back with their wills broken. Not having the energy to start afresh and put their efforts into one last venture that’ll put food on the table. Many families were split while staying in Dubai because of a rule that didn’t allow 18 year old sons to be sponsored by their fathers. This meant that either they send them to the expensive colleges and universities here or send them abroad, not everyone could do either. The result was “visa runs” for these boys who would go back home for a month and wait for their dads to somehow get a visit visa for them so that they could spend another  3 months in precious Dubai.

The phenomenon called Dubai has resulted in the formation of at least two lost generations. One that came to find gold originally as they came back like ghosts in their own home countries drained of all their powers, and the children they bore, who grew up to be soulless individuals capable only of reciting the latest movie, mobile phone or gadget model number, or the latest car on the street.

It truly saddens me to now see some of these people left over here in Dubai still trying to hold on, regardless of their circumstances, just trying to stay on in Dubai come what may. God knows when they’ll wise up and realize that all of this temporary. The irony of the similarity of the “Dubai” story with how this world is a temporary abode before we cross over to the hereafter cannot be ignored. As muslims, we’re taught to prepare for the hereafter all our lives by being good humans, follow the 5 tenets of Islam in the best way possible and try to inculcate the habits of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) into our lives as much as possible. Treading on this path sincerely, will lead us to eternal salvation, or so we’re told. We’re told to shun away the temptations of the world, and lead a continuous battle (jihad) against our self as we have by way of being muslims, submitted our will to the will of God. Now apply all that to anyone who’s staying in Dubai with all the realities existing around it. Eerie right?

Have I made it LARGE?

The idea came to me from an ad for McDowell’s whisky, where stars like Saif Ali Khan and Gautam Gambhir list their long line of distinguished achievements and then ask themselves, “Have I made it large?”

It’s a good question to ask oneself periodically as it allows you to take stock of things and really assess how you’ve done so far or are you on track or not. The key however lies in realizing two simple truths about the question.

One is, whether making it “large” is the real objective or not? I mean have you even set yourself that goal, because not everyone wants to take part in the proverbial rat race? The second is how do you define having made it “large”, because it could mean different things to different people?

For the sake of keeping the discussion simple, let’s assume that everyone including me, has set himself or herself the goal of making it “large”, however, it only differs in its meaning.

Having set that premise, I dare to embark on this journey of self evaluation at the tenderly ripe age of thirty, and the first step on this journey entails me clarifying my personal definition of having made it large. However, I shall not start with the definition, rather I will enlighten the readers with the second step first, which is that of listing the various achievements…..no, wait a sec, I can’t call them achievements yet since the yard stick has not been defined… so lets call them “significant events” during the course of my life thus far.

It all started one morning back in 81’ in a dusty old town of Ajman, (I’m pretty sure most of you don’t even know where that is, ………well go look it up, I’m not wasting space in telling you that it’s the 4^th largest emirate of the UAE after Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah and that its located 5 minutes towards the north of Sharjah!) when I was born on the auspicious day. It was an innocent age where even Dubai was still finding its feet and though hordes of expats had made there way to these shores, it wasn’t difficult to realize your dream of making a better living than back home, wherever that might be. Everyone knew each other as it was a small community (not really an advantage if you were a bit adventurous) but the only attractions on offer were bowling and skating at the Al Nasr Leisure land J.

However, even during those times, there was nothing holding people back from dreaming big, and my father was one of them as well. So he ventured into his own business, leaving a relatively cushy job with perks and starting out on his own. Fast forward 8 years of continual losses and in ‘98 we were down in the dumps. Suddenly we couldn’t sustain in Dubai and had to make the eventual move back home very prematurely. Suddenly the bubble burst, for me as a 17 year old, the world came crashing down. No foreign education, no coming back to my dad’s business and expanding it to an empire, no nothing. That was the first big event in my life, the first set of circumstances that really affected me, that shaped my personality. Up till then I was living in my own fantasy world, a straight A student, mild mannered, not too big on the latest style or fashion, didn’t have the most fancy console games or gadgets, just going about my way. Suddenly, my school fees could not be paid and a higher education became a distant dream. I had just completed my 12^th year of education by giving my AS Level exams, which was fortunate because this was the first year, the school I was in decided to offer AS Level examinations, otherwise I would’ve had to wait for the next year to give my A Level exams. Anyways, it was decided that I would be shipped off to Karachi first and would try to get into IBA which had always been a fall back option should a foreign education not materialize. But getting into IBA wasn’t going to be easy. It was touted as the toughest university to get into with a long procedure of screening which sorted out the best from the rest.

I had to stay with my nani (who I call nomi pyaar se) initially as my family stayed back in Dubai. She lived all the way in Kalaboard, Malir, a few minutes from the Karachi airport. From there I took my first steps in the city of Karachi by getting on the mazdas and infamous coaches. The fare used to be 3.5 and 5 rupees respectively, I still remember that I got off in the wrong direction and fell backward on the road since I didn’t know that you had to get off in the same direction as the bus was going in order to maintain balance. I still remember that I used to stand waiting for a bus with a seat available for upto an hour at times adamant that I would only travel when I found a seat, and then failing to find one started going on buses with space for one foot at the door, standing space on the window sills, hanging from the rear frame, sitting on the roof, those were the days.

I enrolled into the month long preparatory classes for the feared IBA entrance test and quickly found out how deep in I was. The big fish from Dubai was no longer the smartest guy around. I was surrounded by students who had worked their butts off to get here in a tougher system with tougher competition and were honed at fighting it out to the top. Have to admit I was nervous, but I persevered, I trusted the methods that had got me here, and slowly but surely, I started enjoying the independence and the new budding friendships. The big day came along rather quickly and when the results were announced, my name was not on the list. Dejected, I refused to give up because IBA had another test for the people who could afford to pay more for the same education a week later. This time I passed and sighed relief as the alternative was pursuing an Economics degree at KU which wouldn’t have been the end of the world, I now realize, but would’ve been the end of the world I’m living in now.

However, there was still the interview and group discussion to go. I turned up on the day of the interview and the first question I was asked was did I sit in the CBM test the same morning. I admitted that I didn’t even know they were having a test. I mixed up Adam smith and Douglas McGregor’s theories, and had to prove that I could write Urdu by writing the word “Bilkul” in front of them, but somehow I got through. This was followed by the group discussion which went off well, and finally I found my name on the list of people who had made it (I would be only the second person from my family to grace the IBA campus). We still had to borrow the money to get me admitted but I was in. In the midst of mad recent happenings, I could still somehow hold my head up high and walk amongst the best as equals. This was the first step towards resurrecting my life and that of my family’s. From here it was more hard work and then the ultimate challenge of finding myself a good job. It made sense to ask oneself at this point:

“Have I made it LARGE?’…………….the answer was not yet!

What followed were the most formative and fulfilling 4 years of my life. I made life long friendships and learnt a lot from everyone I met. It would be safe to say that I learnt more about life outside the classroom than I did while in it. In the first semester itself, our class team won the campus cricket tournament, which made us quite popular, our class also won the internal debate competition, with me getting the runners up trophy, and we won our first talent show with a truly innovative performance with me in the lead. I was on a high, a high that comes from feeling you’re alive every second, every breath. I could feel every moment. Along came concerts, and dinners, events, gate crashing, sleep overs, group studies, going to cheap cinemas to watch cheap movies, bowling alleys, football and a whole lot more. I remember transforming into an extrovert as before IBA I was never the outgoing kind.

I never said no to anything, whether it was a plan to go for lunch or dinner with friends or on an IBA endorsed event. This helped me make friends across various groups in IBA and got me out of the confines of just my classmates. The net of friends widened and not out of any ulterior motive but purely out of fun. I discovered I could dance at IBA and soon we were looking for excuses to dance. Beach picnics, artifice, talent shows and mehndis. By the 4^th year I was being invited by people who barely talked to me to come and dance at their mehndis, (somehow they always lost my number when it came to the actual wedding ceremony J). No worries, I enjoyed it all.

I also discovered I could act, and so came along BhaiLog company. The time spent at Suneel’s place with rehearsals will forever remain etched in my memory. The high of those performances, it was pure bliss.

There was also the struggle to land good internships as this would then be seen as the first step to a great job, so the internship hunting season would be a frenzied one for everyone. For my first internship I got into Citibank which was quite an achievement for me as well, because it still meant the head could be held up high. Also I had gotten in with no “source” so the sense of achievement was even stronger.

Should I have asked my self then: “Had I made it LARGE?”

The second internship came pretty soon after the first and by this time I had set my eyes very clearly on P&G, every marketer’s dream company. They too had a rigorous procedure to hire internees who were then granted an extended 2 month interview as P&G had a famous policy of only hiring from their batch of interns. They had a complicated test, a screening interview and then a panel interview. Don’t know the ramifications of admitting now that the test paper had been released by the previous year’s students and I had been privy to it before we actually sat for it. Naturally we passed, but P&G got wind of this and were being extra tough on the screening interviews. Of the 400 odd students who sat for the test, some 132 passed, and only 18 cleared the screening stage. Of the 18, only 8 or 9 got offered the internships. Still remember the day I got the letter and I read the first line “we’re pleased to…” don’t remember the rest, reading that much was enough. Now I really felt I was in the big league, and I really had to ask myself:

“Had I made it LARGE?”

3 years into P&G and I was once again wondering where it was all going. I had run up a huge pile of debt and had made the same mistakes my father had made. Surprisingly, I somehow refused to learn from his mistakes and in the yearning to give my family the same lifestyle they had back in the good old days, I kept racking up the credit. I was obtaining all the material comforts, from the latest TV set, a window and split AC, fancy furniture and so on, all culminating with a car. Thankfully I came to my senses quickly as well and started consolidating. At the same time I got an offer from IFFCO and I took it. Partly because P&G was getting too much for me and partly because I wanted to settle all my liabilities quickly as well, this was only possible by earning in Dirhams. Once again the P&G experience was a rich one and taught me everything I know. The time spent there will forever hold me in good stead. Just like IBA, every day was fun and challenging at the same time. I was surrounded by young enterprising people with a fire in their eyes. Everyone was out to prove themselves and pushed themselves to the limit day in day out. It was a very high performance culture and there couldn’t be a single day you could take to pause and reflect, if you stopped, you fell behind. Some of the best minds and talents going at it made for a very highly charged atmosphere and the stress took its tool. There were burnouts, and feuds, and resignations, but we soldiered on until one day, even I bit the dust. I had had enough of explaining why I didn’t sell 1 MSU more or less last month and so decided to risk everything and head to Dubai for a relatively unknown company in the grand scheme of things.

Thus far I hadn’t faced any real failures on a personal level yet, I wanted to get into IBA, I did, I got 2 great internships while there and the eventually got my dream job as well. The detour wasn’t bad, before my last exam and on the day of my sister’s marriage, I became the first one in my class to get a job offer and that to from Engro chemical, (Pakistan’s first multinational company). They offered a 46,000 Rs. Package which I eagerly agreed to and joined on the day of my 22^nd birthday. A week later they posted me to Dharki where I found myself living alone with no family, immediate or extended for the first time in my life. I cried that first day, and once I got myself together, I decided to explore Dharki, I was done in 2 hours. 3 weeks of sulking and I found myself back in Karachi, where I promptly got a call to attend the Shell assessment center. Once again I was pitted against some of the best minds IBA and Karachi had to offer. Out of the 8 only 3 got in initially with the other 2 being 4.0 and 3.99 GPA holders from my batch. Once again the sense of achievement and pride soared and I was immensely proud of myself.

Shell posted me in Pindi and I was there for about 2 and a half weeks before I got the call from P&G. I flew down to Karachi and had decided to go without a tie, which was not a smart thing to do I was told. So I borrowed a tie from the person I was there to replace, the Marketing Director was new and hadn’t seen me during my internship. He asked one question: “What’s your objective in life?” I started with the obvious answer but he interrupted me and said, “what’s your REAL objective?” I drew a deep breath and said I want to build a house for my family. He said that’s it then, “Welcome to P&G”! and that was that.

Back in Dubai, I realized I had made a mistake the first day at work and didn’t have the guts to go back. I knew I had a window of about a year since I had been termed a “regrettable loss” at P&G and could be taken back. However, 3 months into IFFCO and Henkel cam calling. They were opening up a new office in Dubai and needed somebody in Marketing. A 45 minute interview, an hour long case study report and 2 online tests later, I was offered the job. New lease of life, I was ecstatic, it had happened again; finally I’d be able to set everything right.

It’s been a little over 5 years now and I have settled all my liabilities, saved up for my marriage and those of my sisters, paid off all loans, my dad’s and my own, took the parents and my wife for Hajj and am currently 7 months away from completing the payments on the house I wanted. God willing, my family will shift into the new place by the turn of the year.

So now “Have I made it LARGE?

It all comes down to the definition. Somewhere down the line I realized all this was not what we’re supposed to be chasing after. Amongst all that was going on, a spiritual awakening also occurred during the month of ramzan of 2005. I felt as if my faith had been renewed, as if the realization that had always been there suddenly became more apparent. Everything happened for a reason, nothing was random, everything was a test, good times and bad times alike. All this was temporary and the real life was awaiting us. Simple truths but so strong that once you realize the enormity and reality of them, nothing else seems important. Using this as a guiding light, the definition was and is and should be simply work for your after life, material things are immaterial and prepare for the questions we will be asked upon death: What car did you drive? How big a house did you make? What brand of mobile or watch did you have? ……….no? that’s not it, is it?

Once you know the questions that’ll be asked, and once you’re on the way to finding the answers to those, then ask yourself “Have I made it LARGE?”………….the answer will be in the affirmative!

Later.